The invention relates to an apparatus for enclosing solid objects with a sheet of packaging material, which includes tube forming and guiding apparatus for continuously wrapping a sheet of packaging material about objects being supplied in sequence to the apparatus.
In known apparatus of this type, for example, the apparatus described in the German Patent DE-AS No. 11,52,050 the tube forming and guiding arrangement has a forming stack for continuously forming the sheet of packaging material into a tube enclosing the objects, for example candies, and two conveyer belts which grip the tube with the enclosed objects between themselves. A shear abuts the conveyer belts and cuts off separate tube pieces, each enclosing a single object. It has been seen that in many cases the tube does not wrap tightly around the enclosed object due to variations in thickness of the objects, so that a longitudinal crease is visible in the wrapping after twisting together the tube ends. Thus it is desirable to embody the apparatus in such a manner that the tube of packing material tightly fits the object to be enclosed, so as to avoid such a crease which negatively influences the appearance of the wrapping.